Friday, 13 November 2015

Miller's Musings Parshas Toldos: Spiritual Magnetism

 
The incident is familiar but perhaps requires fresh investigation.  Rivka, pregnant with twins, but this being unbeknownst to her, feels a strange sensation that seems to be curiously linked to her location.  When she passes a place of ‘Torah’ learning she feels a child struggling to break free and when she is close to a site wherein idol worship takes place, experiences a similar phenomenon.  She is told through a wise man’s prophetic vision that this is in fact due to two children being within her womb, each with a natural inclination to one of the buildings she comes close to.   But can this really be the case that the two foetuses enclosed within a womb can be so drawn to their individual places of interest?
The key to understanding this is found in the realisation that, contrary to popular thought, the spiritual world is in fact the true reality and the physical world a mere shadow is this existence.  Pointing this out, Reb Yerucham Levovitz zt’l, explains that just as the needle on a compass naturally directs itself towards the north pole, so too things of spiritual purity steer themselves instinctively towards other entities of a similar nature and those of spiritual negativity to an object that shares its characteristic.  This is not something that needs to be consciously felt or decided upon, it is an inherent, innate facet of anything that exists.  Yaakov and Eisav may not have been able to perceive where they were with their physical senses, but their inborn inclinations automatically guided them there.                                                                                                                                                                                         
The corollary of this concept, and the message to us, is that the more we imbue ourselves with spirituality, the more we will be inclined towards greater levels therein.  The more we fill our lives with acts and interests of meaningless spiritual voids, or worse, the less we will be disposed to our true purpose.  This goes some way to explaining those who claim to have no attraction to matters of the soul, which may be due to their lack of connection to its yearnings previously and total devotion to the body’s desires.   This is of course a loop in which the only way to enter it is to begin following what the soul longs for, even where the penchant for it is not yet present.  It may not be our instinctive wish due to the choices we have previously made, but despite it all this is in fact what the true us truly wants. 
 
May Shabbos bring help to bring out the true us.
 
L’ilui Nishmas Leah bas Avrohom

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